Wuthering Heights may be a love it/hate it type of movie considering all its polarizing opinions, but no matter what you think about it, one thing is pretty undeniable. It’s got style, and it’s got vision. After having a blast watching it in a theater packed with women earlier this year, I revisited it on streaming with an HBO Max subscription, and one thing I noticed even more this time is how Cathy’s fits stay true to one color palette the whole time, and I think it’s worth diving into.Of course, I couldn’t take my eyes off of all of Cathy’s clothes going full bodice core during both viewings, but this time all the coordination was impossible to look away from. [...]So, what’s up with these particular colors? While I would have theorized it would have something to do with red being the shade associated with passion and desire, when CinemaBlend spoke to writer/director Emerald Fennell, she had some interesting thoughts about why she dressed Margot Robbie in the same palette throughout. In her words:"When it comes to the color palette of the clothes, for example, it made sense that Cathy makes an imprint on the world that she's in. Cathy kind of like burns an image onto any space. And so, we wanted to make sure that her clothes were very graphic. So they're black, white, red and occasionally like a silver, because she's always sort of an indelible shape."Now this is interesting. Cathy needed to “burn” through every moment on screen. During the filmmaker’s chat with us, she also spoke about how the expression of a character’s personality through something like clothing is very specific to Gothic cinema. The genre often evokes intensity that we wouldn’t see in other movies, so the lavish use of red is all part of it. You can check out her full thoughts below:As she says, it’s not just about the costumes. It was also through the textures she decided to use throughout the sets. I know I’ll never forget this movie’s skin wall, which was actually fashioned out of actual scans of Robbie’s own skin to represent what it feels like for Cathy to be a “collector’s item” to her husband once she gets married.Fennell’s explanation of the Gothic genre also helps make sense of some of the objects in the movie being exaggerated sizes or how long we have to wait for Cathy and Heathcliff to kiss. Everything is more dramatic and hyperbolic than you’d expect from other movies.I don’t know about you, but I really appreciate Emerald Fennell’s eye for making her films very distinct, and Wuthering Heights knocks it out of the park in that respect. (Sarah El-Mahmoud)
'Jane Eyre' (Cary Fukunaga, 2011) – FilminApasionado drama de Charlotte Brontë que tiene en ésta la mejor versión cinematográfica que se ha hecho de su obra cumbre, Jane Eyre. Mia Wasikowska en la piel de la importante heroína está espléndida, frágil y poderosa a partes iguales. Impecablemente realizada y profundamente poética, la presencia de Michael Fassbender, Jamie Bell y Judi Dench elevan el filme a otro nivel. Una joya indiscutible del cine de este siglo. (Belén Ester) (Translation)
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Speaker: Irene Lofthouse (dressed as Nancy Garrs)Date: Tuesday 12 May 2026 6:30pmBrontë Birthplace / ZoomJoin nursemaid to the Brontës, Nancy Garrs, on a virtual walk to see Keighley through Brontë eyes.*PLEASE NOTE* Due to popular demand this talk will now be streamed live on Zoom. Please choose Standard for an in-person ticket and Digital for an online ticket. A recording will be sent out afterwards to all attendees.Why did the Brontës go to Keighley? How did they get there? Who did they visit? What was the town like at time: the people, the shops, the buildings? When would they make the journey?Discover where they shopped, heard and learned about music, found out about electricity, whooped with glee, developed drawing and painting skills, met and mixed with Keighley’s movers and shakers as well as the swelling number of migrants to the town.Based on Keighley Library’s ‘In the footsteps of the Brontës’ trail-booklet by Keighley Local Studies, Nancy Garrs will add her own comments on the Brontë family she knew at Thornton and Haworth.Irene Lofthouse is a first-generation Yorkshire lass of Irish heritage who has been telling tales since childhood. She has careered around many incarnations: caver, consultant, shoe-seller, storyteller, petrol-pumper, publisher amongst many others – but stories have been integral to them all. A cultural historian/researcher, writer, actor, Irene has appeared in a Ken Russell film, at the Edinburgh Fringe, featured on Radio 4, BBC Sounds, TV, stage, and at art/literature festivals performing her one-woman plays or giving talks. She’s particularly interested in making visible, invisible or forgotten lives and voices, in exploring new ways of seeing old stories and collaborating with literacy, historic agencies and universities to create accessible and fun learning resources. Co-founder of two community theatre groups, her poems and prose feature in many anthologies and she is a trustee of the JB Priestley Society, a trustee of the Undercliffe Cemetery Charity, a member of 26 Writers and The Friends of Bradford’s Becks.
Drawing on a vast quantity of unexplored archival materials, Deborah reconstructs the texture of Emily Brontë's days, bringing us closer to one of the greatest and fiercest writers we have, by showing us her creative process and her confidence in her strange art.This book has much to reveal to readers of Wuthering Heights, as we accompany Emily around the wild moorlands she loved so much. Also threaded through with the contemporary politics and events of the era (from the early labour movements of the Chartists and reformists, to the slave uprisings in the colonies), and authors and locals that Emily read about or knew (from proto-feminist Mary Wollstonecraft to the masculine lesbian Anne Lister).Featuring illuminating readings of her poems, This Dark Night takes us inside the world of Emily's irrepressible spirit and wild imagination.
Atmospheric and empathetic rather than revelatory, Lutz goes beyond recording events and facts to immerse readers in Brontë’s way of seeing the world, where imagination and the moorland landscape merge into one continuous vision.A thoughtful, imaginative portrait that brings fresh interpretation to familiar ground.
Lo esencial para aficionarse a la lectura es tener la inquietud de adentrarse en mundos y experiencias diferentes y, por lo general, es más satisfactorio que los libros elegidos sean resultado de una búsqueda intuitiva antes que de una recomendación. Por pura casualidad, el primer libro que -inapropiadamente- recuerdo haber leído de muy niño fue Cumbres borrascosas. El espíritu atormentado de Heathcliff, junto al carácter caprichoso de Catherine, y el áspero y desabrido paisaje en que se desarrolla la acción me impresionaron tanto que llegué a sentir como las palabras de Emily Brontë despertaban en mí confusas -y a veces terroríficas- emociones. Aunque en mi librería desentona un poco junto a La isla del tesoro o Cinco semanas en globo, sigue siendo uno de mis libros preferidos. (Manuel Sánchez Ledesma) (Translation)
Edited by Grace Milne RaeIntroduction by Polly TealeBodleian LibraryISBN: 9781851246748This inspirational book is a delightful gift for readers and fans of Charlotte Brontë’s novels.‘Cheerfulness is a matter which depends fully as much on the state of things within, as on the state of things without and around us.’From Jane Eyre to Lucy Snowe, Charlotte Brontë’s heroines think deeply on how to live a fulfilling life, often expressing passionate beliefs, heartfelt advice and pragmatic philosophy. This inspirational selection of short quotations, revealing their – and their author’s – innermost thoughts on early Victorian times, remains surprisingly relevant to us today. Drawn from Jane Eyre, Villette, Shirley and The Professor, the quotations cover a wide range of themes including happiness, love, feminism, work, truth, feelings and prejudice. This thought-provoking book, first published in 1912, is a delightful gift for anyone who loves to read Brontë’s novels.Charlotte Brontë (1816–1855) was the eldest of the Brontë sisters.Grace Milne Rae (1885–1987) was the daughter of Scottish novelist Janet Milne Rae.Polly Teale was the former artistic director of Shared Experience Theatre Company for whom she wrote and directed an award-winning trilogy of Brontë themed plays: Jane Eyre, Brontë and After Mrs Rochester (Nick Hern Books). She is now an arts psychotherapist.
Both Love London Love Culture and Northern Arts Review announce the Autumn performances of a new production of Sally Cookson's Jane Eyre in Colchester and Chester.
Emerald Fennell’s adaptation of Wuthering Heights is a popular hit, but it pales beside the ‘towering nightmare’ of Emily Brontë’s original. Let's never forget its power. (...)It was Saint Valentine’s Day, wasn’t it, when “Wuthering Heights” was let loose on the world, dividing its audience while filling cinemas and leading publishers to reprint the stormy and extraordinary 1847 novel amid the studio’s marketing circus. Now HBO Max are streaming the movie with Margot Robbie as Cathy and Jacob Elordi as Heathcliff, so that you can watch this shattering romance over and over in the company of your loved ones with whatever tubs of ice cream and home-made popcorn you think fit. But before you do, it’s worth taking another look at how extraordinary the writing is in this towering Romantic nightmare of a book. (...)It’s difficult to grasp the form in Emily Brontë. It’s certainly not akin to Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre or Daphne Du Maurier. Emily Brontë has no formal mastery of form: she’s no Sophocles, she’s rather a Shakespearean writer whose untidiness has lent it the grandest kind of vitality which brings alive every improvised gesture and makes it seem inevitable. The lunacy of this is that everything is sex, therefore nothing is sex. The heart aches with the desolation of the elements it hits up against. (...)It would be a great thing if the book was read in its thousands once more. It is an extraordinary pagan horror show washed in the bitterest tears. But we shouldn’t be too hard on Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi.There is nothing sage or soothing about Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights. Nothing but the appalling grandeur and the truth of art. How many babies will be called Heathcliff now? (Peter Craven)
As much as the Swedish DP may enjoy shooting in IMAX, Emerald Fennell’s vision for her reimagining of Emily Brontë’s seminal novel had a different ambition than the one he fulfilled for Denis Villeneuve on Dune: Part Three. The writer-director wanted her tragic period romance starring Margot Robbie (Cathy Earnshaw) and Jacob Elordi (Heathcliff) to have a tactile, impressionistic quality, hence the decision to shoot the majority of the piece on standard 35 mm film.When it came to landscape shots of the Yorkshire Moors — as well as wide interior shots involving Edgar Linton’s (Shazad Latif) decadent manor — the filmmakers sought a higher resolution for the sake of detail, but without sacrificing film grain. Neither standard 65 mm nor IMAX were going to uphold both of those requirements. Thus, Sandgren and Fennell opted for VistaVision, a large 35 mm film format that presents high resolution and just enough grain to maintain continuity with the rest of the film’s 3-perf 35 mm.“Each format will affect the emotions, and there’s a huge difference to me within the film formats. We tested 65, but Emerald was missing the grain, so we went for 35 to see the grain,” the Oscar-winning Sandgren tells The Hollywood Reporter in support of Wuthering Heights’ 4K release. “Our technical reason for VistaVision was to capture the landscape shots in a high resolution [with a finer grain] because they include small details that you want to see better. Basically, all real exteriors and wide-shot interiors were VistaVision.” (Brian Davids)
The recent movie Wuthering Heights is based upon the famous 1847 novel by Emily Bronte. But while this film is an attempt to reinterpret, not just reproduce, the original story, it only works some of the time. (...)For a time, the harshness of this Wuthering Heights is interesting; it’s good to see what the film’s 21st century lens finds beneath the surface of mid-19th century social disturbances. And Emily Bronte’s story about the conflict between the demands of a highly formal society and raw human passions leaves plenty of room for all manner of speculation.But the new film, I think, goes beyond rebellion against restraint to grotesque but empty gesture. The film loses control with Cathy’s costumes, angry sex and the color red. There’s so much red in the film the color runs past meaning and impact. Excess can be liberating – but maybe in moderation – because eventually you start rolling your eyes and hoping for a quick end to the movie. (Howie Movshovitz)
En Cumbres Borrascosas, al convertir a Isabella en una sumisa que da su consentimiento, Fennell da a entender que las acciones de Heathcliff, aunque siguen siendo perversas, resultan más fáciles de digerir para el público al hacer que su comportamiento parezca menos monstruoso… E incluso sexy. Andrea García-Santesmases Fernández considera que la película utiliza el consentimiento para validar un tipo de relación que de otra manera resultaría deleznable. “No se trata solo de un juego sexual puntual, sino que desde el primer momento Heathcliff le dice a Isabella que la va a humillar, que la va a utilizar, que la va a degradar. Estas amenazas parecieran diluirse porque las acompaña de un ‘¿te parece bien?’ a lo que ella contesta ‘sí’. De la misma manera, cuando la vemos atada con una correa, a cuatro patas, en medio de la inmundicia, viviendo literalmente como una perra, la violencia de la imagen se suaviza porque ella da a entender que eso es lo que quiere”, asegura.Para la sexóloga, el problema está en situar el consentimiento como una validación no solo legal, sino ética, e incluso, política, de una relación. “Lo que acontece entre ambos no es un delito ya que ha sido acordado entre dos adultos, pero eso no quiere decir que esté bien, ni mucho menos que sea una expresión de empoderamiento femenino o de libertad sexual. En este sentido, es interesante señalar que en el libro de Cumbres Borrascosas no aparece esta alusión repetida al consentimiento por lo que se trata de una estrategia contemporánea para validar narrativas problemáticas”, advierte. (Marita Alonso) (Translation)
While Lutz sets Emily’s life within the familiar context of the Brontë family as creative individuals passionately creating worlds in their tales, she draws on newly available notebooks and manuscripts of Emily’s, including some of her juvenilia and early poetry, to illustrate the writer’s determination to work tirelessly on her writing and to pay only marginal attention to family cares. As Lutz points out, “The longing that suffuses most of Brontë’s writing—for a lost self or land, the dead, or the liberty found in leaving the body behind—grew out of her own searching nature.” Brontë’s persistent haunting of the moors and her familiarity with the animal life around her led to her belief that the divine could be located in the natural world. According to Lutz, “The night, the stars, the moon—these were her poetic muses.”Brontë emerges from Lutz’s splendid biography as a “consummate artist who developed her genius quickly and with great confidence.” She started writing Wuthering Heights in 1845 at the age of 27; after much revision and scribbling, the novel was published in late 1847. Reviews were scarce and few were glowing; most cited the novel as coarse, savage and gloomy. As Lutz observes, it would take readers close to 100 years to catch up with Brontë’s accomplishment and “recognize in its weird, witchy, and ghostly passions a masterpiece.”Like Emerson, Brontë embraced nonconformity and individualism, and for her the boundaries between the personal and the cosmic were permeable. With her genius she was able to depict “the grandeur of changing skies and the moods of clouds and storms” and to capture the “heights that owe everything to the lowlands and the dead.”Lutz’s exhilarating prose animates This Dark Night, lending fresh insights into the life and writing of one of literature’s most enduring authors. (Henry L. Carrigan Jr.)
“It’s really hard to get at who Emily Brontë was,” biographer Deborah Lutz remarks, “but also interesting because it is challenging.” In This Dark Night: Emily Brontë, A Life, Lutz approaches the enigma of the “weird, strange, difficult, mysterious person” who created the monumental Wuthering Heights. For Lutz, who is a professor of 19th-century English and American literature at Penn State, this aura of mystery makes Emily the “most fascinating Brontë.” Using recently discovered poetry manuscripts and focusing closely on Emily’s day-to-day life, Lutz creates an unforgettable portrait of a multitalented genius. [...]Similarly, in This Dark Night, Lutz wanted to reconstruct the bodily experience of Emily, “how her body felt, what she smelled, what she heard, how cold she was, what kind of clothing she wore, [even] where she went to the bathroom,” she tells BookPage. Lutz’s research thus included walks on the treeless moors surrounding the family’s Haworth home, where the birdsong and fierce wind mirror what Lutz sees as Emily’s “inner wildness.” Lutz thinks of her as a “capital R” Romantic writer, like Lord Byron and William Wordsworth, poets Emily loved who yearned for immersion of the human self in the larger natural world. In Brontë’s case, her love of nature also included observations of how the Industrial Revolution, particularly mining, was altering her beloved moors. [...]A chief pleasure of This Dark Night is Lutz’s analysis of the drawings found in Brontë’s notebooks and marginalia, some of which are included in the biography. Her letters, poems and manuscripts are adorned with doodles that hint at the author’s personality. Some of these communicate “humor and lightness”: A silly drawing accompanying a somber poem indicates Brontë’s “refusal to grow up and her resistance to writerly rules.” A sketch of a gnarled tree reinforces her “devotion to the unreclaimed, uncultivated and scarred.” But she also doodled horrific little depictions of violent scenarios: decapitations, bludgeonings, piles of corpses. The gothic novels and stories Emily was reading at the time were redolent with violence, rape, flagellation and other gruesome and unsavory acts. These elements of her imagination emerge in the domestic and sexual violence depicted in her novel. As they say: Wuthering Heights is not a love story.Brontë was not a violent person, but she “wasn’t always the kind of person we would approve of today,” Lutz explains. She was “a misanthropic person . . . she didn’t always like other people, and part of that misanthropy comes out in [imagining acts of] sadism.” She prized solitude and liked dogs more than she liked people. She desired to lose herself in the natural world, as in her poem “I’m happiest when most away,” which imagines her “spirit wandering wide / through infinite immensity.” Lutz notes how many of Brontë’s poems imagine scenes of a lover weeping at the graveside of their beloved, as Heathcliff does over Catherine’s grave. Catherine’s dream of being flung out from heaven onto the heath of Wuthering Heights, where she “woke sobbing for joy,” exemplifies her desire to haunt the Earth. Perhaps, Lutz suggests, Brontë’s vision of an earthly afterlife is a form of grief, a way of finding her own mother’s ghost wandering the moonlit moors. By “excavat[ing] the undergloom,” Lutz writes, Emily penned “her great novel about the heights that owe everything to the lowlands and the dead.”When I ask Lutz how she feels about Emerald Fennell’s controversial film adaptation of Wuthering Heights, she diplomatically responds, “I’m glad that the movie has caused people to read the novel.” Her own favorite work based on Wuthering Heights comes from Anne Carson, whose 1994 poem “The Glass Essay” reflects on Brontë’s character as a “whacher.” As Lutz explains in This Dark Night, “whacher” was Brontë’s preferred spelling for “watcher,” as in someone who is primarily an observer of life. “Whacher is what she was,” Carson writes. “She whached God and humans and moor wind and open night. / She whached eyes, stars, inside, outside, actual weather.” Lutz’s own close observations of this weird, “whachful” and wonderful Brontë illuminate the author like never before. (Catherine Hollis)
A world away from the characters he’s often inhabited – whether laying on the sneer as Captain Flint in Starz’s pirate caper Black Sails or the smirk as Rochester in 2006’s Jane Eyre – he is open and likeable, warmth radiating from him in waves. Not a curled lip in sight. Then there’s his laugh: big and sonorous, the only one I’ve encountered that can unironically be described as a guffaw. (Patrick Smith)
Sat 09 May, 4:00 pm–5:00 pmAttic, Lawrence Batley Theatre, Queen Street HD1 2SPJoin Claire O’Callaghan & Dr Michael Stewart as they dismantle the myths that have long obscured Emily Brontë’s life and art.Emily Brontë is one of our best-known writers, but also one of the most enigmatic. Her only novel, Wuthering Heights, has been adapted across all media forms. The latest film adaptation, directed by Emerald Fennell, and starring Jacob Elordi and Margot Robbie, is yet another interpretation.Dr Claire O’Callaghan’s Emily Brontë Reappraised – the only new biography of Emily to be published during the last 20 years – brings new insight into how we read and remember one of literature’s most enigmatic writers. It has just been re-published in a new expanded form.Join Claire and fellow Brontë expert Dr Michael Stewart as they dismantle the myths that have long obscured Emily Brontë’s life and art, revealing a bold, passionate, and politically attuned writer whose work still resonates today. Rediscover Emily Brontë for our times.
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by Polly Teale9th – 16th May 2026Directed by Andrea ParleWhitefield Garrick Theatre, Bank St, Whitefield, Whitefield, Bury M45 7JF, UKPolly Teale’s literary re-imagining of the turbulent lives of the Brontë sisters portrays the women from childhood to death, weaving back and forth in time. In 1845, their brother, Branwell Brontë, returned home to Haworth, West Yorkshire, in disgrace, having been dismissed from his employment following an affair with the mistress of the house.As their brother descends into alcoholism and insanity, his sisters, Anne, Charlotte and Emily, attempt to keep the household together and protect their father, Patrick. In the midst of chaos, they write more furiously than ever before. Focusing on their creation of The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Jane Eyre, and Wuthering Heights respectively, their journeys and engagement with their characters offers a glimpse into the states of mind of the sisters during this time.Each feels tortured and ill-at-ease in their own way, as they struggle to align their literary creations with real life. With a certain amount of mystery surrounding the artistic legacy of the Brontë sisters, Polly Teale’s interpretation of their fractious relationship and tortured ambition presents a fascinating glimpse into the lives of three of Yorkshire’s most famous authors.
Bradford has a rich literary history shaped by women writers who made women the centre of their storytelling. From the Brontë sisters whose female protagonists were independent, fearless and revolutionary, such as Charlotte Brontë’s Jane Eyre, Emily Brontë’s Catherine Earnshaw and Anne Brontë’s Helen Graham, to Times bestselling author Saima Mir, whose lead character Jia Khan of The Khan trilogy dismantles the deeply-rooted patriarchal institution of Bradford’s baradari, women writers from Bradford are gifted in their ability to tell powerful, eye-opening stories about women, offering both nuanced critiques of societal conditions and challenging norms. [...]It was while living in Bradford that I penned by own book, Hijab and Red Lipstick, which was recently released as a second edition. While my book is not set in Bradford, the city certainly nurtured my writing. From long hours spent writing at Waterstones café, whose staff diligently kept me fuelled with coffees and teas, to the advice and support I found at the Brontë Festival of Women’s Writing in Haworth, and the opportunities I have had as both an attendee and speaker at Bradford Literature Festival, the city really has a lot to offer for women writers like me. (Yousra Samir Imran)
One of 2026’s most buzzed-about historical novels is heading straight into the heart of old Hollywood glamour with a tinge of darkness.Bestselling author Natasha Lester is set to release her latest, The Chateau on Sunset, on June 2, 2026, and the novel is already being described as one not to miss thanks to its bold premise: a feminist reimagining of Jane Eyre set inside the infamous Chateau Marmont during Hollywood’s Golden Age. (Nina Derwin)
To her credit, Fennell understands that it’s more fun to smash a dollhouse than to construct one meticulously. Her sledgehammer approach to party scenes in her previous films is rivaled by Wuthering Heights’s opening sequence of a public hanging. Though we are supposed to be in the late 18th century, the mood is more medieval. After a few moments of the hanged man’s dying gasps, a Charli xcx song floods the soundtrack (the truly terrifying track “House,” which she recorded with John Cale), and the crowd erupts in a carnal frenzy. People roar, some start fucking, a nun closes her eyes, and parents pull away their children. The scene does not exist in Brontë’s novel, but it’s somehow closest to the monstrous vitality of that world, a place where the dead refuse to die. Too bad that Fennell never gives her characters the chance to live. (Genevieve Yue)
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by Charlotte Bronté. adapted by Polly TealeDirected by Nettie SheridanWith Izzy Boreham, Joseph Bentley, Evie McGuire, Polly Jones, Katie Ford, Steven Adams, Cathy Byrne, Jimmy Schofield.Brighton Little Theatre, Brighton9th-16th May, 2026The attic burns with secrets untold in our 800th Production!In Polly Teale’s bold reimagining, Bertha Mason - the infamous “madwoman in the attic”- steps from the shadows and emerges as the living embodiment of Jane’s suppressed longings and rage. A daring interpretation that reveals the storm beneath Charlotte Brontë’s classic. Dive into Jane’s inner world and unearth the psychological battles between passion and restraint, duty and desire. Arresting and emotionally charged, this adaptation breathes raw, urgent life into one of literature’s most enduring heroines — a Jane Eyre like no other.
Susan Dunne sheds fresh light on the relationship between Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell.Ten years of research have uncovered a wealth of details about the pair's friendship, which lasted from their first meeting in Windermere in 1850 to Charlotte’s death in 1855.The book traces their parallel development from unknown writers to literary giants, and reveals more about the controversy surrounding Gaskell’s The Life of Charlotte Brontë.Susan says: "Charlotte Brontë’s friendship with the novelist Elizabeth Gaskell is one of the most important literary friendships ever and it led to one of the most controversial and enduring biographies ever written."As a student and fan of both writers, I wanted to know more about the friendship – how did they first hear about each other, what brought them together and what did they think of each other?"It was fascinating to find out about their shared views on areas as varied as national and international events, the position of women in mid-Victorian Britain and more domestic concerns such as child rearing. And then they share a lot of gossip about contemporary famous figures as well as discussing the art of writing and their experiences at the hands of critics."As well as considering them as writers, the book looks at how their domestic lives overlapped and examines the different challenges married and unmarried women faced at the time.Susan adds: "Charlotte took an active interest in the lives of the Gaskell children. She wasn’t by most accounts very maternal but the youngest daughter, Julia, was her favourite."I was also intrigued to find out about Elizabeth’s efforts to bring about Charlotte’s marriage to Arthur Bell Nicholls, and her professed willingness to abort Charlotte’s unborn child if it would have helped save her life."And then of course there’s all the controversy over The Life of Charlotte Brontë.“Elizabeth Gaskell tends to get a bit of a bad rap amongst Brontë fans, with some biographers accusing her of duplicity by writing about Charlotte to the press in the hope of getting a commission to write the biography, but I’ve come up with some clear evidence that this did not happen." (Alistair Shand)
4K Blu-ray Video and Audio Review:“Wuthering Heights” is a visually stunning film, with its set design and cinematography being as integral to telling the story the way Fennell wanted as the story itself, and this 4K 2160p/HDR10/Dolby Vision transfer delivers her vision in spectacular fashion for home audiences to enjoy. The details, lighting, camera angles, fog and various other changes to the weather throughout the film all come through gloriously in one of the best looking 4K transfers of the year.On the audio side of things we’ve also got a remarkable Dolby Atmos mix that surrounds the viewer both in fantastic sound effects that just bring you into the world, as well as the beautiful original score by Willis, and the perfectly placed original songs by Charli XCX. The dialogue is crisp and clear, front and center, never battling for center stage. An audio mix like this next to a top tier 4K transfer like we’ve received and whether you love “Wuthering Heights” or not, there’s no denying that Warner Bros. has delivered a masterful home release that fans can devour.Special Features:Audio Commentary – If you’re going to want to hear a commentary from anyone involved in this film it’s going to be Fennell, and that’s what we get here. The writer/director dives deep into the creation of the film, her mindset with the story she’s trying to tell, as well as the casting, the crew, the sets, the music…you name it, she likely touches upon it. As a whole this is a track well worth listening to after watching the film first.Threads of Desire – This featurette is just under 7-minutes in length and aptly focuses on the costume design in the film and the importance they play to the story and characters.The Legacy of Love and Madness – This feaurette is five-and-a-half-minutes in length and sees various cast and crew talk about Brontë’s novel, and how for some this was their first time diving into the world. They talk about how this film isn’t an exact adaptation of Wuthering Heights and shouldn’t be viewed as such, which is something I feel many have missed.Building a Fever Dream – This featurette is just over 12-minutes and sees Fennell and Margot Robbie talk about the production, the set, and the unique brand of storytelling in place here that they hope audiences will latch onto. (Brendan Campbell)
Like so many, I spent part of my Valentine’s Day at the theatre, watching Emerald Fennell’s highly anticipated (and equally controversial) new film with a friend. Having consumed enough online discourse, I went in with low expectations and the assumption that I wouldn't enjoy it. In the end, my low expectations were somewhat exceeded, and I ultimately gave it a solid 3-star Letterboxd review.So, does Wuthering Heights do justice to the novel it's based on? The short answer: Not exactly. But that shouldn't stop you from seeing it for yourself, nor should it stop you from enjoying it. [...]If we're answering the question of whether Fennell's movie "did justice" to Brontë's Wuthering Heights, then the answer would objectively be no. But if one is asking whether or not the movie is good, then the answer is more murky. It's a visually beautiful film with an easy-to-follow plot and emotional moments (Even a skeptical viewer like me cried at one point).Ultimately, no amount of social media discourse or negative reviews should interfere with whether or not you decide to see a movie, or even whether or not you enjoy it. So whether you're a die-hard Brontë fan or someone unfamiliar with the novel, Wuthering Heights might just be for you. (Amy Guerin)
The two leads have an electric chemistry as the doomed Cathy and her toxic lover Heathcliffe but while it’s stunning to look at, their volatile, cruel and tumultuous relationship ultimately becomes a bit of a slog. (James Wigney)
Tea time has always been a very prominent cultural part of the British era. It finds ample mentions in poems and novels of that time. From Jane Eyre’s lavish parties to Jane Austen’s portrayal of the elite class, it finds a mention there. Items like freshly baked breads, scones, seasonal jams and a variety of tea often formed a part of this set-up. (Subhadrika Sen)
This enduring oversight could be for all of these reasons or a combination of some. Still, I resent the descriptions of Anne by journalists such as Charlotte Cory as the “runt of the literary litter”, and urge readers and Brontë fans to give her work a chance in its own right. (Amy Wilcockson)
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by Deborah LutzW.W. NortonISBN: 978-1-324-03711-8Deborah Lutz compellingly captures Emily Jane Brontë, extraordinary poet and author of the incomparable Wuthering Heights, with deep insight and glorious prose.Emily Brontë (1818–1848) was only twenty-seven-years old when she began work on one of the most important novels in the English language. Two years later in 1847, she completed Wuthering Heights. It took the world almost a century to catch up to Brontë’s masterpiece, and it has taken even longer to know Brontë—an elusive figure, with a ghostly legacy provoked by her early death and the loss (and likely destruction) of almost all her personal papers.Drawing on formerly inaccessible notebooks and manuscripts, This Dark Night constructs a portrait of Brontë, her famous writing sisters Charlotte and Anne, and the effect of their sisters’ and mother’s tragic deaths. In the first full-length biography in over twenty years, renowned scholar Deborah Lutz sketches the days of a woman crafting otherworldly fiction while running her father’s parsonage: writing interweaving with household work, daydreaming, and exploring the rough-hewn outdoors.As she traces the influence of Brontë’s life and work, Lutz follows how Brontë’s fantastical early poems of the night sky, women rulers, and outsiders and rebels grew into the stormy, transcendent Wuthering Heights. Lutz also illuminates the overlooked ways that the legendary writer addressed debates of her time that still resonate today, including questions of gender and sexuality, race and class, and rapid industrialization set against the natural world.From her menagerie of dogs and birds to the beloved moors that Brontë wandered and later emblazoned in her novel, Lutz depicts the passions of an author at odds with convention. Uniting the domestic and the cosmic, This Dark Night plumbs the life and writing of this idiosyncratic woman, dark soul, and monumental genius.
Fine detail and contrast are as dialed-in as expected, with color representation leaving a huge impression due to the production team's careful choice of specific palettes in regards to paint, fabric, decorations, and other items to heighten the mood and tone in dramatic fashion. Framed at its original ratio of 1.85:1, this the kind of atmospheric picture that immediately holds your attention from start to finish and the 4K disc -- triple-layered, of course -- is thankfully encoded at a supportive bit rate, one that varies greatly depending on the scene but never wavers in its precision. Overall, this is a drop-dead gorgeous presentation of "Wuthering Heights" and one that fans will be happy to own. (...)Optional subtitles, including English (SDH), are included during the film and three featurettes below. A Descriptive Audio track is also on board, which I have not listened to but is probably pretty hilarious in spots.
Brandon Schreur: Obviously, this movie is based on such an iconic book that so many people grew up reading either in school or just for fun. I know that you’ve worked with Emerald before, but she comes to you and says that adapting Wuthering Heights into a movie is going to be her next project, and she wants you to do the production design for it. What’s going through your head at that point? Is that an exciting challenge to dive into, or is it more of a ‘Uh, how are we going to pull this off?’ kind of feeling?Suzie Davies: It’s a bit of a combination of both. I literally had that exact feeling — like, I cannot wait to read this. How are we going to do it? And, now, I can’t wait to actually make it. Yeah, it was like that whole roller coaster. I think the joy of working with Emerald for the second time was that we already had a sort of dialogue. We already knew each other.She actually spoke to me before I read her screenplay to let me know what her ambitions and desires were. So, I went in and read it already knowing she wanted me to build everything on a sound stage. She said she just wanted to never leave the studio. Everything we see was going to be on the sound stage.Being able to read her script with that in mind, it meant my first thoughts — which are usually your strongest, but they’d already been defined in that direction. So, off I went. It was one of the best scripts that I’ve ever read, as a production designer. Her stage descriptions; there is nothing better than reading, for instance, the skin room. The description of that skin room was just like, ‘Let me at it! Come on!’ But it was, like, everything. I kept going, ‘Hang on a minute, a doll’s house! Oh, it’s raining in Wuthering Heights!’ It just kept going on and on and on. It was brilliant.Totally. There are so many different scenes or different locations in this movie that I loved. As you said, the skin room really stuck out to me. Seeing that in the theater for the first time, that was just, like, something I haven’t seen before.Yeah, it’s exciting. If we could do Smell-O-Vision or Touch-O-Vision. Because you almost want all the other senses to be involved, especially for things like that. None of us could stop touching that wall. There’s something really — you just want to squeeze into it. It was amazing. [...]Getting into some of the specifics, the design and the look for the titular Wuthering Heights estate, I’m so in love with how it conveys feeling without ever actually having to say anything. Just the way it’s filmed, the way it looks — it’s so oppressive and ominous. Can you talk about the process of figuring out how the estate was going to look and how you went about making it feel so gloomy from the visuals alone?I think we knew that every surface, I wanted it to feel wet, sweating, or dripping with water or some sort of bodily fluid. It just needed to feel alive. Whenever you have surfaces that have reflections on them, I think it will give something uneasy — is it breathing, is it moving, what made it happen? There’s something else that’s happening.That was like, across the board, every surface is going to reflect or be able to take water as well. A little bit to what I alluded to before, because we’re on a sound stage and I had a certain size of stage to work with, everything is sort of built within a circle. So we get the horse and carriage in and out without turning around; it’s a circuit, basically, on the sound stage. Once you start getting some things you need to have, you begin to design outwards from those boundaries. Which, it’s really helpful to have boundaries, otherwise you sort of don’t know where you’re going.We were able to put, like, the tiles on the wall, which are sort of high-glass tiles. That’s a little bit of a nod to what’s really used in that part of the UK. They do build houses with big, brick tiles, but not black shiny ones like we had. But the proportions are right. That was enough of a broad brushstroke to say that we’re making a period drama, but it’s going to be in this weird, heightened version of a 14-year-old’s dream or imagination of what she thought when she read this book. It’s great when you have a writer/director to do things like that; to show the concepts of what we’re doing. We made models, and we had loads of different runs of what that color should be and the size of those tiles. Again, the workshops are all there, so Emerald could come and have a look.When you have a director who has also adapted the screenplay, you get the immediate answer of either ‘Yes, that works,’ or ‘No, that doesn’t.’ That just cuts through everything. You don’t have to phone someone up, wait, and go, ‘What do you mean?’ I just take her to the workshop and go, ‘This is what we’re going to put on the wall, does this work?’Then we had a big discussion about why we’re changing it for white in the gothic arch; at one stage, we were going to do it the other way around. But, actually, the house doesn’t look that dirty until we get later [into the movie] when it gets destroyed a little bit. But that also gives the great opportunity to see red splattered on the wall in that wonderful moment.And bouncing off that, you have Wuthering Heights, but then you have Edgar’s mansion, and it’s so different. Like, that’s a house I would actually want to live in, it feels so alive. How did the process of making that one differ from Wuthering Heights? Did you have to basically start from scratch doing that?Yes and no. Again, the brilliant stage description that comes very early in the description of Thrushcross Grange is actually the doll’s house. I did it the other way around — we built and designed the doll’s house, and then built the life-sized version of the doll’s house rather than the other way around. The doll’s house was slightly out of proportion because we knew we wanted that hand to come in with the model of Margot’s character into the shot. That’s where we started, from that little bit of detail. That made the windows [a certain size], which on a real house would then be [another certain size].What’s great, then, is that all of the characters in Thrushcross Grange, for real, are slightly too small. Because our original is slightly out; it’s a quarter-scale model. Which is a good scale, but it’s slightly off what it should be. So, the ceilings are a little bit taller, and the windows are a little bit bigger. So, once you start on that version, doing it that way, it just gives you that slight unease — like, I can’t put my finger on it, but it’s not quite right. That’s the feeling we wanted for the whole film. There’s just something hovering between reality and unreality. (Brandon Schreur)
It’s your second time working with Emerald Fennell and Jacob Elordi (both on Saltburn) and third time working with Margot Robbie (Babylon and Saltburn). Is there anything different in your collaborative experience with them this time around?[...] There were a lot of things from Emerald, like how [Heathcliff] lives in this barn and how he could see [Cathy] brush her hair in the window and how things were related – and then this rock that came through and all these things grew all over the house to take over. How it was suddenly winter seeing her father in misery. It was just more dramatically visualized than normal, which is fine because it’s so different and felt appropriate for this film to become heightened, letting you cry and letting you feel. [...]I listened to the commentary track on the disc and learned that some of the days were sunny outside and you needed to make them rainy and overcast?!“The biggest challenge for me is always weather on films. It’s rarely the way you want it to be, honestly. I could be particular in how i think it should look and I’m disappointed. On Bond [No Time to Die] in Matera [Italy], it was cloudy, which doesn’t at all look as brutal as it does in hard sun, so we actually came back and shot again to get a hard sun there. But that was the only thing that mattered that day was that it looked hard.In this case, we obviously had worked on soundstages first and established scenes. We decided scenes should be foggy and rainy. And then you come to the real world, which we were promised that in March, end of March, in the Moors, it’s gonna be miserable… in a good way. So we come there and it’s sunny and windy. If it’s sunny you can fog it up and make it look miserable, but if it’s windy, the fog disappears. But we did it. That was one of the few tools we had to tame nature was to add fog where we want, like when [Cathy and Heathcliff] walk amongst the rocks. That was important, because he’s finding her there and it should be obscured and not so clear.Same when she finds him returning and he’s invisible in the fog. That’s shot on location. There was no fog. It was sunny that day, but we had so much atmospheric smoke to be able to do that. Our genius special effects department was able to turn on a cue to make him invisible and become visible in a few seconds. It was like everything was in a play – like improvised jazz. It was cool how that eventually worked. On stage, that’s much easier because you can just do what you want.”I’m curious, you had said earlier you love learning. What did you learn that you were able to put into practice on Wuthering Heights?“I guess what I mean is that you learn so much from the people around you, especially intelligent directors that take you on this journey and develop a film together. It’s in all the small details that you learn from a director. It evokes situations that creates challenges that you have to figure things out that you don’t know how to do yet, and then you learn your own work.That happened, for example, on this film. I felt there was a certain amount of theatricality Emerald wanted. It’s sort of like these fantastical devices in the sets, like a rock [juts] out into the kitchen and the house is grown over by these cancerous [tumors] that are weird fabrics. There was always a level for allowance for that. At the same time, we felt that, instead of shooting on a green screen, or build a massive, super expensive Volume, I love the soft drop textiles that you print on and then you can light them for different looks – for a flat look or backlights through the clouds for a dramatic look. And that’s what we did on this film, which I’ve done before and isn’t what I learned.The thing was we were trying to get the sense, in the stage, that it was gonna be very real feeling. We knew it was going to have a stage look, but make it as realistic as we could make it. So we decided to paint the imagery so that it would have dark clouds on the top of the backdrop. On the ceiling, normally, you put white silks to create the skylight. But that bothers you if you shoot these big VistaVision shots indoors and you see the ceiling, it would have to be replaced by the visual effects. So we figured out, with that challenge, I recalled that I had seen gray silks. We did a gray silk that was the same color as the clouds in the photographed backdrop that went seamlessly together on the ceiling so the trans light kept going into the sky. With enough atmosphere, you could not see it wasn’t sky. I learned that the look of that, when you have that big gray sky, it looks so much more realistic than a white silk. So from then on, for every movie now, I’m gonna use that for sky. If you want to have light, it’s still soft, but if you pull out the lights, it doesn’t reflect lights, which would look fake.The beauty of working with interesting people is that you always learn so much. In the directing, it’s interesting to learn how directors work with actors. The actors are so important for the story and the cinematography, for me, is the tool – with the light and the lensing and the closeness or distance from the actor and the composition – that should do similar things that sound and music does with the audio.I think the cinematography should serve the emotions. It could be subtle, but it should rather serve the emotions than the plot. I’d rather feel the right feeling with the characters, if I just see an image, than if I understand what’s going on with the plot. It’s really important to focus on that. I feel like I want to be directed like Emerald’s directing actors. I want her to tell me what she tells the actors, because it’s about those things. That’s how we get the images in our heads. It’s better than coming in with visual images to show. I like to work with her telling me how to feel: like say ‘miserable.’ Well, how does that look in this world? Stuff like that.” (Courtney Howard)
What is your favourite book by a dead author?Wide Sargasso Sea is the book that revived Jean Rhys’s fortunes — brought her back from the dead while she was still alive, as it were — and it’s great, of course.
Thu 7 May, 7:00pmBrontë Parsonage Museum ShopCome along to the museum shop where Emma Conally-Barklem will be giving a live reading of her latest collection of poems The High Flight: 50 Poems Inspired by Emily Brontë's Hawk.Emma Conally-Barklem is an author, poet, yoga teacher and workshop facilitator based in Yorkshire. She has taught yoga for fourteen years both home and away. Her classes are creative, fun and led with kindness offering options for everybody who wishes to practice.She is the author of four collections. Her first collection The Ridings was curated into an exhibition in her hometown, Bradford. Hymns from the Sisters was written after a residency at the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Emma won the Black in White Poetry Prize 2024. Her first novel, Yoga Homicide was shortlisted for the 2025 Book Edit Writers’ Prize and a Top 100 choice for The Ascent Novel Prize 2025. She was a core poet for the BBC’s Contains Strong Language Poetry Festival Bradford 2025 and was a guest on Radio 4's 'Front Row' where she talked about the Brontës. She won the First Chapter Award 2025 for her grief work and services to marginalised communities.
Is “Wuthering Heights” a date movie?Unlike Heated Rivalry, this probably won’t make you or your partner blush, but a story about intense obsession might not be the best play for a first date. And for anyone who knows the story, this isn’t exactly a feel-good romcom.Sensual moments are balanced with plenty of decidedly unsexy moments as Fennell explores the visceral nature of love and the gristle behind tough circumstances. Committed couples and partners are probably going to find more resonance with the clandestine romance and soulmate talk.That being said, there’s some heavy material here that risks ending a night with your valentine on something of a downer. Leave some time after for a romantic dinner or drinks to cleanse the palate.Fluids of almost every kind fill Fennell’s framing, from the close-ups of beads of sweat on Elordi’s back to the snail crawling up a window and characters perpetually caught in the rain.ASMR is definitely in the mix, with a soundscape orchestrated to immerse the audience. All of the elements singularly align with Emerald Fennell’s vision, from the strong performances to the dreamlike production design, the sumptuous set decoration and the elaborate costumes.Charli XCX’s original soundtrack gives the period-esque tragedy a contemporary pulse, underscoring all the angst. In a haunted romance where sex and death seem intrinsically linked, “Wuthering Heights” frequently teeters on the edge of being completely over the top without ever actually going off the cliff.Fennell continues to helm visionary films wrestling with obsession and revenge within the context of class and power dynamics. Those themes echo through Promising Young Woman, Saltburn, and now into the Yorkshire moors.Fennell conducts with whip-smart precision, and audiences willing to trust her baton will be rewarded with a bittersweet symphony. (Chad Kennerk)
Of all the roles Molano has played on Alley stages since joining the company, none stands out more than her superlative starring effort in Jane Eyre, by far her biggest role to date. But no matter the role, Artistic Directo Melrose notes she is an utterly transformative actor. (Jessica Goldman)
MāramaThe trailer for Taratoa Stappard’s first feature promises a blend of Jane Eyre and folklore, with a touch of Guillermo del Toro style. In Mārama, the writer-director draws on Gothic horror and Māori culture to summon the ghosts of colonialism. (Weronika de Oliveira)
Tue 5 May, 7:00pmOnline via ZoomThis 5 week course, delivered by Dr Sam Hirst, takes a deep dive into the world of the Brontë Juvenilia, exploring the fantastical worlds they created. Weekly topics are: Creating Worlds: An Introduction to the Juvenilia in context; Branwell's Angrian Imagination; Charlotte's Gothic Africa; Charlotte's 'Farewell to Angria' and Untangling Gondal: Emily and Anne's shared world in poetry. The course will explore what the Brontës' juvenilia reveals about their attitudes towards empire and desire and map how the sisters' writing develops across their juvenile work and lays the groundwork for their later fiction. After reading short stories and poems from the juvenilia, you may see the Brontës in a new light!
‘I wish I were a girl again, half-savage and hardy, and free’ – Emily and Anne Brontë Online Talk
Wed 6 May, 7:00pmOnline via ZoomElizabeth Gaskell’s famous biography, The Life of Charlotte Brontë, went a considerable way to creating the myth of the famous writer living up on the moors. But what of the image of Charlotte’s two groundbreaking literary sisters, Emily and Anne Brontë? How has our view of these trailblazing writers changed over the years?Emily Brontë’s enduring classic Wuthering Heights makes her the author of one of the finest novels in the English language and shows her to be a woman of great passion. What was she like as a person, and how was she depicted outside the family? Her sister Anne has been overshadowed by both siblings but her debut novel, Agnes Grey, and feminist masterpiece The Tenant of Wildfell Hall are now critically acclaimed. Compared with Charlotte, both sisters left little behind beyond their work, creating a vacuum others have been happy to fill with their own theories, and this has sometimes obscured our understanding further.So, what did Elizabeth Gaskell discover about Emily and Anne in her research? How have opinions on their trailblazing works changed over the years, and how has our image of them changed? Sue Newby, Education Officer at the Brontë Parsonage Museum, reveals all the answers.The last in the Charlotte Brontë and Elizabeth Gaskell mini-season, in partnership with Elizabeth Gaskell’s House.
Margot Robbie and Jacob Elordi's R-rated Wuthering Heights dominated pop culture during its theatrical build-up and run in early 2026. Some audiences preemptively criticized the film as a wildly unfaithful adaptation of Emily Brontë's novel. Others waited until after the credits rolled to lambaste the film online. Either way, the movie wasn't exactly warmly received. But despite the initial backlash, Margot Robbie's Wuthering Heights adaptation has taken its new streaming home by storm. Wuthering Heights is now streaming on HBO Max. After less than a day, Wuthering Heights is the number one movie on streaming in the US and across the globe. (Archie Fenn)
3 'Wuthering Heights' (2026)Elordi's first-ever period-like drama...truly memorable. One of the most controversial movies of 2026, Wuthering Heights is an adaptation of the famous Emily Brontë book, directed by Emerald Fennell. This was the second project on which Fennell and Elordi worked together, and the messiest one, surely. Not because of the different casting per se, but, according to fans of the original material, because of the too-much erotic portrayal and grand lack of depth to the book's story.Now, I believe that Elordi and Margot Robbie did an outstanding job in this movie. Despite what critics and the general audience think, Elordi, thanks to his performance in Wuthering Heights, has the potential to be cast as a future Mr. Darcy, if the industry ever considers doing another version of the movie (without counting the Netflix series releasing this fall). Add the romantic value and depth of Elordi's acting...and you've got a great chance of winning an Oscar, just saying! This movie's aesthetic, scenery, and clothing were phenomenal, which added to the beauty of Elordi and Robbie's portrayal. An unforgettable film indeed. (Giulia Campora)
Do you remember the first book you read, or the book that made such an impression on you that you kept returning to it again and again?For me, it was Jane Eyre, the Charlotte Brontë classic that I discovered on our bookshelves at home when I was about 12. Orphaned Jane and the inscrutable Mr. Rochester certainly struck a chord with me and I still have that old copy and pick it up every couple of years. It’s interesting that although I’m totally familiar with the story, I always find something that surprises me: a scene I didn’t remember or a detail of an encounter or relationship that I had skipped over to get to the juicier bits.The story seems to have resonated with filmmakers as well. I’ve lost count of how many versions have made it to the screen, big or small. Move over, Jane Austen. (Margaret Tessman)
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Hurlevent
Une création collective de la Phenomena
d'après le roman et la vie d'Emily Brontë
Mise en scène Maëlle DequiedtDu 5 au 7 mai 2026, 19h30L'Idéal, 19 Rue des Champs, 59200 Tourcoing, FranceCatherine aime Heathcliff, un enfant abandonné et élevé comme son frère. Mais elle épouse un autre homme, riche, plus convenable. Humilié, Heathcliff imagine une terrible vengeance.Les Hauts de Hurlevent est une œuvre brutale, sombre, hantée par la violence sociale, les fantômes et la rage d’exister. Maëlle Dequiedt revisite cette œuvre mythique d’Emily Brontë en rompant avec les clichés romantiques au profit d'un théâtre iconoclaste, à la recherche de l'humanité profonde de ces personnages. Mêlant librement au roman, des poèmes et des éléments de la vie d'Emily Brontë, la metteuse en scène dialogue avec cette autrice aux prises avec la morale de son temps et compose un spectacle très personnel qui pose des questions essentielles : que faire des histoires qui nous ont façonné·es adolescent·es ?Sur scène, les interprètes se confrontent à ce roman-monstre, porté par la musique live de la compositrice et performeuse Nadia Ratsimandresy. Le plateau devient un champ de tensions, où les passions s’incarnent dans la voix, le souffle, les corps, pour mieux révéler ce que cachent les mots : la captivité mais aussi les outils pour s’en libérer.► RENCONTRE AVEC L'ÉQUIPE ARTISTIQUEmercredi 6 mai | à l'issue du spectacle | l'Idéal - Tourcoing
Haworth is a picturesque market town which was once the home of the famous Brontë sisters, a trio of 19th Century authors known for such classics as Jane Eyre and Wuthering Heights, along with a multitude of classic works with gothic themes and emotional resonance.It’s a lovely town, boasting narrow cobbled streets and a hodgepodge of old-fashioned shops, charming cafes and pubs, and surrounded by rugged moorland. I had a great time simply walking through the centre for the very first time and discovering all it had to offer.I was sent out to check out a restaurant called Haworth Old Post Office, located in the town’s converted old post office – the place where the famous sisters would have sent off their unpublished manuscripts. The post office dates all the way back to 1829, when the first penny post was used. (Samuel Port)
Imagine wandering through the desolate Yorkshire moors of Jane Eyre, or confronting the deadly Count in Bram Stoker's Dracula. It's one thing to imagine characters in these settings; it's another thing entirely to imagine yourself in them.Thanks to a new AI tool developed by chatbot program Character.ai, however, you can step into your favourite public domain novels with ease. The platform's latest "Books" feature enables users to literally insert themselves into some of the most beloved works of literature, from Pride and Prejudice to Frankenstein.Not only can you place yourself within the story, you can also embody existing characters, tinker with storylines, switch up settings and even change endings.Put simply, you can rewrite the classics.But should we? Interactive storytelling is nothing new – Netflix has released several "choose your own adventure" films since 2017, and video games have been playing with the concept for decades. These texts exist to be reinterpreted. The same can't necessarily be said for centuries-old novels. (Nell Geraets and Karl Quinn)
When I was 10, I walked into Duncraig Library as I'd done every week of my life thus far. I'd already worked my way through all the Enid Blytons, all the horse books, all the Chalet School series and all the Nancy Drews. The librarian wouldn't let me into the adult section of the library until I was 12. So I had to find something else in the children's section to occupy me. I decided to start reading the classics. Yes, I was a nerdy, bookish 10-year-old.I started with the "A" section, but some other nerdy, bookish 10-year-old must have visited the library that day because there were no Jane Austens left. I continued onto "B", and found a book called Jane Eyre. More than half the front cover featured a large image of Rochester on his rearing horse. In the bottom left-hand corner, taking up only about one-eighth of the cover space, was a woman. Yes, the woman whose name was on the front cover of the book was the smallest thing on that cover. That didn't strike me as particularly odd at the time — feminism hadn't quite found its way to Warwick, where I lived.I took the book home and started to read. Within a couple of chapters, I was lost forever to the magic of Charlotte Bronte's story. In an interview with Emerald Fennell about her Wuthering Heights adaptation, she said that her movie reflected the impression the book made on her when she first read it as a 14-year-old. That resonated with me. Back when I read Jane Eyre, what stayed with me was the so-called madwoman in the attic and Jane's best friend dying of consumption. Mysterious fires in bedrooms, men stabbed and bitten, an entire house burned down by the madwoman. It was only much later that I realised the main character of Jane had left hardly a mark on my consciousness.But when I reread the book as an adult, I couldn't believe that I'd been so seduced by the darkness and that I'd entirely overlooked the best part of the book — its heroine. (...)It was time to find a different era and setting for my next book, meaning I'd have to brainstorm an idea from nothing for the first time in years. (....)What if I reimagined Jane Eyre in some way? Immediately I could see Rochester's gothic Thornfield Hall transformed into the gothic Chateau Marmont. I had my book idea. I'd write The Chateau On Sunset, a reimagining of Jane Eyre, set at Hollywood's infamous Chateau Marmont during its 1950s and 1960s heyday. And I would tackle the sense of dissatisfaction I'd had with Jane's story since rereading it as an adult.What was I dissatisfied about? Well, there are many occasions in the book when Jane looks out at the hills that form a barricade between her and the rest of the world. She longs to cross those hills. She yearns to see the world, to have adventures. On the very first page of Bronte's novel, Jane's reading a book about birds and she imagines what it would be like to travel to the same places those birds do — the Arctic, Siberia. Does she? No. There's just one occasion in the book when she escapes beyond those hills. She runs across the moors and finds herself in a house with a man who's probably even more obsessive than Rochester. She promptly escapes back to Thornfield and her true love, Edward Rochester. It's no spoiler to say that, reader, she marries him. It's a romantically satisfying ending. As a child, I was completely happy with it. But as an adult I wondered — did Jane ever regret not having seen the wider world that she so longed to experience? Was there a way to give Jane Eyre an ending that was both romantically satisfying and personally satisfying?That's what's so wonderful about literary reimaginings. Jane Eyre is one of the first feminist heroines of literature. Who can forget her declaring to Rochester, in an era when the word feminism was foreign to most, that she was his equal? (Read more)
Favorite fictional literary character: Jane Eyre. There’s something powerful about a young woman of little social standing deciding she cares enough about herself to stick by her principles.
Poppy Nash: What are your favourite three movies of all time?JCG: Pride and Prejudice (2005), Jane Eyre (2011) and Marie Antoinette.
And this year’s Wuthering Heights film saw a tourism spike at Haworth and the Brontë Parsonage Museum. Haworth’s cobbles are well trodden by influencers wandering, wistfully, with a Brontë book. (Emma Clayton)
